


Coherence

by silversundown



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 12:49:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14593392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversundown/pseuds/silversundown
Summary: There’s always a chance something could have gone wrong since the last time she saw him and anticipation strangles her heart as she rounds the corner.It’s no accident that it starts beating again a little faster than before the moment she sees him.Missing scene for episode 11, season 8.





	Coherence

Daryl might not be with the rest coming through the gates.   
  
There’s always a chance something could have gone wrong since the last time she saw him and anticipation strangles her heart as she rounds the corner.  
  
It’s no accident that it starts beating again a little faster than before the moment she sees him.  
  
Can’t control the smile on her face as her feet run faster than her mind tells them too. Wide enough to lift her cheeks and crinkle her eyes, so much bigger than she’s smiled in what feels like forever.  
  
Since the night he came to her little house and told her a beautiful lie.  
  
Since the prison before that.  
  
They’ve had so much loss between them that she knows instantly someone is gone when he doesn’t smile back. Not even a twitch of his lips to form that hesitant half grin she’s grown to like so much.  
  
Her own face falls a second later, eyes watering as she hears the news. All the excitement in her blood at seeing him again fizzling flat.  
  
“Are you okay?” She asks, knowing it’s a stupid question but that’s what they do. They ask anyway.  
  
He’s holding onto Judith with a vice grip but the baby doesn’t seem to mind, just curls into him like he’s the only safe spot and maybe he is.  
  
He doesn’t reply with words but he’s never been one for those anyway. Shakes his head in a way that makes a cluster of emotion form in her gut at the sight.  
  
He’s no good at admitting that any more than she is, but here he is…admitting it.  
  
The tears breaking free and running slowly down his cheek only prove that he lost his battle at hiding it today.  
  
She catches one droplet on the pad of her thumb, brushing it away with a gentle stroke that he leans into. Eager for her touch in a way she hasn’t seen since he ran to her in the woods after Terminus.  
  
They melt together so easily into an overdue embrace that she wonders why they don’t do more of this, minus the grief and pain. Just them.  
  
He’s weary and tired and doesn’t have the energy to fight it anymore, maybe that’s why this time is easier. It’s certainly why her own tears flow just as quickly against his shoulder.  
  
Little memory bubbles of all the moments she spent with Carl pop into her mind, unwelcome. Doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to see his face or wonder what-if.  
  
Too soon. Too much. Not yet.  
  
By the time they part the others are already several yards ahead but she only wishes she could hold him again right this instant. She just got him back again, after all, and the moment she’s not flush with his chest it feels like he could be yanked away at any moment.  
  
The harsh reality of their most recent loss only proves how easily that could happen.  
  
“Lets go inside.” She says, her own lower lip trembling at the sight of his tear streaked face.  
  
He only nods, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as they head toward the main house. So much easier with his affection these days then he would have been even six months ago.  
  
One foot in front of the other. Keep going until the pain is a dull throb and not a stabbing slice. That’s how they all function, but it’s these first few steps that are the hardest.  
  
He’s reluctant to let Judith go even when they walk through the main doors and Maggie reaches for her.  
  
“Can’t. Told Rick I’d keep her safe.” He mumbles, and her heart breaks all over again. Surely there’s a limit on that, she wonders. She must be well over her quota by now.  
  
“She is safe. You got her here. It’s okay now, I want her to meet Gracie.” Maggie says with a soft smile, reaching again and finally being rewarded for her efforts with a handful of toddler.  
  
Daryl’s fidgety and restless the moment his arms are free, and really, she’s no better off. Doesn’t know why she suggested they come up here when they could have easily held down a bench around the campsite instead.  
  
It’s a distraction. Something to do. A destination when they have none, and she decides to just go with it, reaching for the first thing that pops into her mind as a possible goal.  
  
“Hungry?” Maggie said rations are low, but Daryl still gets his portion if she has anything to say about it.  
  
“Nah. Can’t eat.” He replies, eyes flitting around the room before landing on her. Clearly thinking she has a plan here when she doesn’t.  
  
“Come on.” She offers, turning on her heel and trusting he’ll follow.  
  
The kitchen is empty when they arrive, an objection on his tongue about how he’s not hungry ready to break free before she wrestles down a container from a shelf. Revealing more teabags than they could use in several weeks time. “One thing we have plenty of is tea. Have a cup with me?”  
  
He still looks like he might refuse and she really hopes he doesn’t because the alternative is to spend the rest of her day watching the gate with nervous pacing for Rick and Michonne, or watching the pen of saviors like a herd of cattle…or watching the kid that has a murderous glint to his gaze.  
  
She doesn’t want to do any of that right now.  
  
He sighs, lowering onto a bar stool with an absent shrug. “The hell’d all that come from?”  
  
“Maggie said Gregory traded with the saviors for it before we ever showed up. There’s more in other boxes. Gave them a bunch of chickens for….this.”  
  
“Idiot.” He replies with a huff and she has to agree.  
  
Suddenly the armor she wears is stifling and hot in the small space of the kitchen and she can’t wait to peel it off. Lets it drop to the floor in a heap before aiming for the cups and lighting the burner on the gas stove.  
  
Shuffling through some tea bags and fiddling with the pot. Busy work that’s better than turning around to see him sad as he was when she looked away a moment ago.  
  
He’s expecting questions, has to be and she can’t put it off forever.  
  
Finally rounds the counter and takes up a stool next to him, letting it tumble out before she can even consider not asking. “How did it happen?”  
  
“He was tryin’ to bring someone in. Tryin’ to help. Got bit.” He says, head in his hands and elbows braced on the granite counter. “Wasn’t the saviors.”  
  
“Dammit.” A shake of her head and a sad huff of breath. Shoulders slumping heavy. “Rick? Michonne?”  
  
“On their way.”  
  
That’s all the detail she needs. Knows she should leave him be and let him mourn because thats exactly what she wants to do, but he feels so far away right now and she can’t let that stand. Not this time.  
  
Slowly, she pries one hand away from his face, slipping her palm into it instead. Surprisingly, he lets her. Though, maybe she shouldn't be so surprised by now.  
  
“Why do you smell like sewer water.” Her words are matter of fact and even, thumb rubbing the tattered skin over his knuckles to soothe any sting that comment might have offered.  
  
He snorts in a weird combination of sadness, lethargy and amusement that doesn’t fit. “Had to go through the swamp to get here. Only way. Lost Dwight, ran back to the Saviors. Tara tried to off him…told her….fucking told her to wait. Want him dead much as she does, but she couldn't just…wait.”  
  
Carol frowns at the anger in his tone, such a quick jump from the soft way he is with her. “Tara’s hurting. Still grieving. It hasn’t been that long since Denise.”  
  
“We’re all hurting. Was a stupid damn choice, now he’s out there with them again. Coulda used him.” He says quickly, dropping her hand with a scowl and that action would hurt if she didn't know damn well he wasn't directing that anger at her.  
  
“I know we are, but if I were her….if it had been you that got that arrow…” She pauses, knowing she's said too much but not caring anymore. “…he would have been dead long ago. Nothing that could've stopped me. Nothing.”  
  
“Don’t say that.” It’s a rough plea that takes her by surprise, coated in regret and delivered with a twitching frown. “That ain’t you. It’s you but…it ain’t you. Don’t want it to be.”  
  
Some part of him is still trying to protect her from this world without being able to accept that she’s already so deeply entrenched in it that there’s no hope for breaking free anymore.  
  
“It already is me, Daryl.” She says with a soft shrug, leaning her elbow against the countertop, bracing a fist into her temple.  
  
He’s brushed off the real meaning behind her words and that stings, but she doesn't push even if she wants to. Tries a different route instead, one just as close to the truth. “Are you mad because it was the wrong choice, or because she tried to kill him first?”  
  
The surprise that question prompts is clear to see in the way his eyes dart over to her, filled with shock that she seems to have worked that out.  
  
It’s no secret that Daryl is nearly obsessed with killing Dwight and she’s pretty damn sure it’s not only because of what the Saviors have done as a whole.  
  
It’s personal for him in other ways she aches to know about but has been too terrified to ask. Until now.  
  
If he had a denial ready to go a moment ago it evaporates just as quickly as he deflates, a rush of breath leaving his lungs that sounds like defeat. “Both. Mostly the last one.”  
  
“What’d he do to you, Daryl? What’d they do.” The question is out before she can call it back, long built up and ready to explode by now, but it doesn’t make him bolt like she feared.  
  
He only gets quieter, the hallowed look to his features more pronounced than a moment ago and she’s not sure if that’s reality or just her mind playing tricks on her.  
  
“I asked you the same thing once. Remember that?” He pauses, waiting for her nod of agreement. She does remember. “Ya told me they didn’t do anything. That’s not how it was this time.”  
  
Her eyes rake over his body as if she can see an injury he never mentioned or find proof of what they’d done.  
  
Wishes it wasn’t so damn hard for them to simply talk to each other and get the whole truth. It had been easier once. They were on the edge of something deeper for so long until life kept tearing them apart.  
  
“They hurt you?”  
  
Maybe that was too far because he sits back, muscles tense. “Don’t matter now. Over and done with and he’s got a lotta other shit to answer for. Plenty of reasons to want him gone. All of ‘em.”  
  
She sees right through that quickly delivered explanation, one hand landing at the round of his shoulder, soothing away the hint of embarrassment that flushes red into his skin. “It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about it right now.”  
  
She’s calling him out much as she can, much as she dares. Telling him she knows there’s _something here worth talking about_ , even if he won’t admit it. Is only too grateful when he doesn’t move away even further, but leans into her palm instead.  
  
“Everyone left from the Kingdom okay? You okay?” He asks, so much much softer than before. All hooded eyes and slow blinks.  
  
“Yeah. Everyone’s okay.”  
  
“You’re right. If it were you…if I was feeling what Tara is…ain’t nothing that could stop me either.”  
  
It’s the closest thing she’s heard to a verbal declaration from him and her heart stalls for a moment, struggling back to life in a heavy beat she feels in her bones. She may know he cares but hearing him saying it is another thing entirely.  
  
Can’t control the sad half smile that curls her lips, or the way she leans in even closer. Their legs practically intertwined where they sit across from each other.  
  
“I know.” She says, not sure how they’d merged so effortlessly that the brush of his forehead against hers feels like a natural course of action.  
  
He still smells awful, but his skin is warm and maybe they were cats in another life because she nuzzles against him as easily as breathing.  
  
It would be easy to tilt her head and capture his lips in a kiss. God, how she wants to. So badly her heart nearly overrules her brain. Right now, in this moment, she’s almost certain he’d let her, but they aren't there yet and that tiny possibility of rejection keeps her still.  
  
“I was so worried about ya the whole time I was out there.” It’s an admission that comes out in a rush, spoken into the space between them. “Shouldn’t have yelled at Tara. Gonna make it right.”  
  
She hadn’t be aware that he lost his temper that much. Doesn’t like that he took it out on Tara who has a broken heart and enough grief to sink a ship, but there’s nothing to be done about it other than the apology he says he’ll give. “Okay, but not now. Right now, have some tea with me and then take a damn shower.”  
  
He huffs out a half laugh just as the harsh song of the tea kettle breaks them apart.  
  
“Maybe let me cut this.” She says, running light fingers over his hair before rounding the counter to aim for the cups. Not expecting he’ll agree, but wishing so badly she could see his face clearly that she won’t pass up a chance to ask.  
  
“Maybe.” He replies, unbothered by the idea instead of put-off like she thought he’d be.  
  
Giving her hope that he might actually let her near him with a pair of scissors.  
  
Later, when he’s reclaimed Judith from Maggie and she’s on her way to supervise Henry, she catches his eyes from across the courtyard. Smiling softly at the sight of them, and he smiles back just as easily. It’s careful and tired, just like they both are, but she’ll take it.  
  
One step at a time, one foot in front of the other. That’s what they do now, and they’ve traveled enough for one day.


End file.
